


Honor And Good Sense

by Ee4ee



Series: Confluence [3]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Genre: Ancient Technology, Dimension Travel, Gen, Guns, Language Barrier, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-02-17 09:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13073595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ee4ee/pseuds/Ee4ee
Summary: A strange gateway has, however briefly, connected two very different worlds. How will those who crossed over adapt to their new home? Where did such technology come from? Two groups of explorers have come together to get to the bottom of these mysterious circumstances. They'll soon find they need more allies. They'll need to learn when they should stick to their convictions, and when it would be in their best interests to change course. Hopefully, before they find themselves in over their heads.SEQUEL TO: Wrapped In A Mystery, Big Shoes To Fill.





	1. An Extended Prologue

A flash of flame preceded a loud crack of shattering wood that echoed through the forest. A Blaziken hit the ground in a crouch, staying low as a brief hail of splinters fell around him. Brand stood when the last of the shards had landed, and turned to survey the damage he had done to the tree. Little enough was left of the branch he hit that even the light breeze could rock it as it hung near the trunk.

Movement at the fringe of his sight caught his attention. A Decidueye landed on a rough pyramid structure almost obscured from his view. The bird turned her head to face him, or so he imagined; at this distance, it was hard to tell. Brand sighed to himself and picked up his notebook and supplies, picking a direction away from the ancient structure and setting off.

Glimpses of tan and green through the foliage ahead brought a halt to his meandering escape from the Decidueye's notice. A surge of adrenaline ran through him, and he rushed as quietly as he could manage to get a better view. Whatever pokémon it was seemed large enough to prove a real challenge, one he desperately needed after so much time spent mutilating nothing but flora.

A Flygon stood in a clearing, wings held stiff and pointed outward. A bulky sand-colored vest covered its entire torso, yellow bands looped around the top of the vest’s shoulders. Strange items covered the vest, none of which Brand could easily identify. A rectangular emblem sat at one shoulder, almost covered by the gear. Once he recognized it, he almost fell backwards.

Brand ducked behind cover and started flipping through his notebook before finding and tearing away the page he needed. Looking it over quickly, he hoped his writing was legible enough for this pokémon's leader to comprehend. What he wouldn’t give to be a telepa-

“Foun’ you.”

Jerking around at the voice right behind him, Brand saw the Flygon grab a metal device off his vest and raise it at the sky. A loud pop rang out from it, and a bright red light rose into the air far above. He shoved the paper back into his notebook and tossed it to the ground away from him. When he turned back, he had to immediately duck to dodge a projectile the Flygon threw. A glimpse as it sailed past his head showed it was the light-thrower. Once he recovered his footing, he dropped into a combat stance. A grin crept across his face. _Warnings can wait until after a little tussle._

He leapt towards his assailant, focusing on its limbs and head instead of what he guessed was a protective vest. At two strides from the dragon, he planted his right foot far forward, gathering it up under him and kicking off the ground with a mighty shove. He brought his right fist around in a rising arc, connecting solidly with his opponent’s jaw. The Flygon’s head snapped back from the impact, but when it once more leveled its gaze on Brand, it too wore a grin.

Brand’s next step dropped him into a fissure in the ground that didn’t exist a moment prior. He used the last of his planted leg’s leverage to launch into a short hop, narrowly avoiding its crushing grasp as it snapped closed as quickly as it had appeared. When he landed, he picked up an unearthed stone with his foot, preparing to turn it on his target.

Before he could launch his kick, the ground beneath him opened again, throwing him to his back. This time, it closed with two waves of dirt and gravel pouring over the top, crashing into him with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs.

Half of his body was pinned, but one leg remained totally free. His newly limited range of motion wouldn’t let him nail the Flygon with the stone, so he dropped it and immersed his leg in flames instead. With all his remaining strength, he kicked out at his captor.

The Flygon stepped forward into his foot’s arc, taking the blow square on its shoulder. It regarded Brand with a curious expression, not even registering the impact it just received. Another sound emanated from its wings, this time a low tone. The thrum resolved into speech. “Very lively,” came the unmistakable, if slightly stilted, human words. “I’m sure you’re the one.”

Brand tried to struggle free from his earthy prison as the Flygon walked around him. His efforts earned him nothing but a look of disappointment from his jailer. The Flygon took two steps back, before lifting and angling its wings again.

An indescribable cacophony ensued, less heard and more felt. A sonic hammer crushed Brand further into the ground and flattened most of the clearing’s vegetation. His vision swam, his ears rang, and his body tingled as his victorious foe appeared again, peering into the slight crater its efforts produced. “A nice challenge,” came the droning human-speech.

After manipulating a small black box, the Flygon retrieved its strange device and fiddled with it a bit, inserting some sort of cylinder inside. Another ball of light launched into the air, this one green. Shortly after, Brand’s belongings were dropped on the ground next to him. The green dragon was content to do little else, and Brand started to collect himself in the ensuing silence.

By the time more footsteps could be heard, he had mostly recovered his faculties. Something outside of his vision threw an object towards him and his enemy, which the Flygon caught with a loud clack. Brand caught only a glimpse of a red spherical object before Flygon threw it back, and his blood ran cold. One of the human’s capture devices, he was sure of it.

“May wanna see for yourself,” Flygon told the newcomer. The mysterious footsteps began again, drawing close now. Brand tensed against his prison of dirt, but it remained unyielding.

A human’s arm entered the edge of his vision. His attention was drawn to their hand; around its wrist wrapped a yellow cloth, as choked with gadgetry as the Flygon’s vest. The most peculiar of this wristband’s attachments were three long beige feathers, stretching up along the human’s arm and out of his sight. They reminded him of his own plumage, from his split crest.

“Let him up, Echo,” a feminine voice called out, punctuated by the sound of a heavy object hitting the dirt. “I want to talk to him on even terms.”

At the sound of her voice, his icy blood regained all its heat and then some. He knew that voice very well; he’d heard it recently, though not while awake. She didn’t come to his dreams as frequently as the others he missed, but those dreams were some of the better ones. Was he sleeping even now?

“Sure, Sarge,” Echo responded. Brand rallied the last of his senses and stood as the dirt receded. He turned to face the new voice’s source, and almost lost composure again. She definitely looked stronger, her hair was shorter and her skin a little darker, but there was no doubt in Brand’s mind that before him stood Sierra, that same human girl from years before.

Sierra glanced down to the biggest scar on his legs, and he caught her eyes widen slightly. She lifted her wrist, showing off the three feathers. “I have something of yours, here. Remember me?”

Snatching up his notebook and a stick of charcoal, Brand scrawled his reply on its first blank page. All his practice paid off in the moment he turned to show her his reply. _‘How could I forget you?’_

He had just enough time to drop the notebook as she rushed to him and gathered him in a crushing hug. He returned the gesture, using a claw to prick his arm when they wrapped around her back. Not dreaming, not this time.

* * *

 

Sierra realized she was humming to herself by the time she finished setting up camp. When she abruptly broke off the tune, Echo looked to her and tilted his head. The Blaziken’s focus, however, remained glued to the page he worked over with slow, precise strokes of a charcoal stick. “It’s getting late,” Sierra said, turning back to her partner. “May as well light the fire now.”

She looked back to the Blaziken's paper to read. _‘I am sorry I could not keep my promise to return. I still have not done what I need, I have been away from home for a long time. You have come to take me with you, but I first need to go back. Your arrival makes my inability to do so even more frustrating.’_

Halfway through her second read-through, a gout of flame stole her attention away as Echo lit the campfire. The Blaziken made a curious sound as he observed the Flygon’s work, but then directed his gaze back to Sierra. She started reading the paper from the top again. By the time she’d finished, Echo was beside her.

He could communicate with her now! Such a limit would be a hassle, but it was far better than they had last time they’d met, and she had already consigned herself to that difficulty. Something bothered her though; as last time, he seemed almost too human. Blaziken weren’t normally smart enough to have this command over language, even if mute.

“Where is your home?” she asked as she handed the page back. Echo intercepted it and started reading it himself, drawing a snort from the Blaziken, who turned back to his ancient-looking notebook and started marking a different weathered page. “And, did you have a- well, do you have a name?”

 _‘Home is far from here, through a strange gate. My name is Brand,’_ read the page he turned to show Sierra. He took the pilfered page from Echo once the Flygon had finished his own reading.

A gate? That sounded like an opportunity Sierra couldn’t pass up. Only her current assignment allowed her to be in this normally prohibited area, but nothing in her contract said she couldn’t check out anything else that caught her interest. “Alright, Brand, we’ll help you get back, but we’re going with you.”

Brand’s eyes went wide as he shook his head rapidly. He flipped to the back of his notebook and drew out a loose page, handing it over to Sierra and pointing at it frantically. As soon as she took it from him, he chopped through the air with both arms in an emphatic negative.

_‘GO NO FURTHER! You face great danger if you continue. Ahead is a dangerous pokémon who will not hesitate to take your life. For your own safety, please turn back from the coast now!’_

As she looked back to Brand, he finished another line on the paper Echo had handed back. _‘I have not had to use it until now. Please do not follow.’_

“I’ve grown a lot since you last saw me, Brand. I doubt there’s much that could seriously challenge us. Can you describe this threat?”

 _‘Decidueye. Old, strong, excellent shot,’_ Brand wrote.

“Think you could take a Decidueye, Echo?” Sierra turned to her companion.

Echo cocked his head in contemplation and began his speech-drone long before answering. “Within their range? Easily. Very long range though. I will say no.”

“We can think of a way to close the gap. Is getting past this pokémon all you need?”

 _‘No,’_ Brand started writing, _‘she is not hostile towards me. The way home is blocked by a structure filled with pokémon that I cannot fight alone.’_

“We’ll just have to clear the first threat in a way that doesn’t exhaust us. Easy enough!” Sierra’s good cheer earned a look of skepticism from Brand, but he made no move to write more. “Look,” she continued in a more measured tone, “if we can’t even discuss anything until you get this done, and you can’t do it alone, then we’ll do it with you. Seems simple to me.” She reached out and grabbed his arm, felt his restrained flinch. “Let us help you?”

Brand looked away from her, muttering something unintelligible. Despite his resistance to her request, he settled in her light grip quickly.

“Six years you’ve been waiting to go home, if you’ve been stuck since we last met. I’d go insane. I don’t know how you could stand to be away for another moment.” Brand looked back to her briefly, his face devoid of its earlier consternation, then looked to the ground and made a sad-sounding but indecipherable comment. He started marking his notebook again, but hesitated.

With a strikeout, he started writing something else. _‘I owe you thanks as well as an apology. Our brief contact let me form a friendship with one of the self-appointed guardians of the gate. These years haven’t been entirely lonely, thanks to that. Sadly, she is no longer with us.’_

“I’m sorry to hear,” Sierra said softly. She released Brand, and wrapped her arm around his shoulders instead, pulling him close. He waited out this gentle jostling before starting to write again.

_‘Before we met, she and the remaining guardian taught me your words. After we met, she taught me to write like this, and told me about your world. She was once part of a team like I was, with other teams working under her and her partner. Yet they were part of an even larger team, over two hundred and fifty strong.’_

“Echo,” Sierra paused and looked up to her partner. “What’s, uh, who could,” she screwed her face up in thought. _Who could teach someone a language without a common tongue?_ “Were there any telepaths on the _Natsuzuki?”_

The Flygon looked back and forth between Sierra and Brand, wings buzzing as if to speak but forming no words for a few moments. “Navy ‘laces Es’eons in the ra’io room an’ fire ‘on’rol cen’er.”

 _‘Elty mentioned this navy,’_ Brand wrote, _‘but she did not say what she did, besides help her ship fight. She would not tell me why you would need that many allies to fight anything. What do you know about her ship?’_

“It’s why we’re here. Well, formally. We’re here to get you, but this place is off-limits to people without special permission, something we didn’t know last time you led us this way. We’re allowed here now to retrieve the ship’s bell and bring it back with us. Really, I offered to do this job so we could look for you, to see if this time you could come back.”

Brand hesitated before continuing to write on a new line. _‘Chryse would be happy this place is forbidden, but she will be upset if you take her bell. It is how she remembers all those she has lost; she is very serious about her ritual.’_

“Who is Chryse? What does she have to do with the ship?”

_‘She is the Decidueye. She was paired with the ship’s team leader.’_

Sierra’s widening eyes shot back to Echo. “There’s survivors. There’s survivors!” She jumped to her feet and stabbed a finger down at Brand’s notebook. “The captain’s damned bird is still alive. Imagine if we could bring her back!”

Cocking his head, Echo looked back to Brand, who wore an irritated expression. _‘Chryse would not be receptive,’_ he started writing, _‘to being taken from here. Elty wished for it, but passed away before she could return. Instead, she requested I see your world in her place.’_

“Oh,” Sierra muttered, sitting back down again. Everyone believed there were no survivors of the wreck. They couldn’t have missed her by more than a couple years. Compared to the better part of a century she’d been waiting, that was practically moments from rescue. The thought sobered her.

Brand looked at her with a much softer expression, then started to write again. _‘I did not mean to depress you. How have you been these years? You lead a team of your own now.’_

“Not depressed, I just wish we could have come out sooner. We’ll help you realize her wish.” Brand reached for her but hesitated, then rolled his claw in a gesture for her to continue speaking. “You really want to know?” Sierra chuckled. “Alright, but it feels a bit insensitive, considering what you’ve been through.” Brand shook his head and repeated the gesture.

“Well, I spent that summer learning survival basics, but come autumn, I was thinking of careers where I could work with pokémon. I ended up with the army, working in a, ah, team with Echo.” She gestured to the Flygon, who dipped his head. “So I guess I have you to thank where I am now; I didn’t much think of pokémon before I met one up close. I left service a year ago, and a couple months back, I took in Echo when he transitioned out. We go from place to place and bring back interesting things. Modern-day explorers of a sort.”

She saw Brand smile at that last one, and began writing again. _‘I figured. I am glad to see you have made it this far. I hope my own team can meet you two.’_

Sierra blinked, “You led them?”

_‘I still do, though exiled.’_

“Well I’d be glad to meet them. Maybe we could work together, if you could get them all here.” Sierra looked out into the woods beyond their campsite. “I’d prefer if we could get them here on this run. It was hard to find someone who might need work out here. The group associated with this memorial site is hard to find, and I had to convince them it was a good idea to take something back.”

_‘One of them will definitely be interested. I believe she will be the only one. She was very interested in all things human.’_

“I’ll be happy to take her in, I’ve got the room. But why the interest?”

 _‘You are something of a legend in my home. Ancient stories and myths. She wanted to know what happened to them.’_ Brand paused before continuing, _‘If she could find anything left behind, she would gain much prestige.’_

Sierra grinned at the Blaziken. “Well we’ll make sure to really impress her.”

_‘I have already heard of many marvels from Elty. Though I was not interested before, I am now.’_

“Aww, was I not enough?”

Brand shot her a quick, wide-eyed look before redoubling his attention on his page. _‘That is not what I meant!’_

“Of course not,” Sierra laughed. “Though it puts you in an interesting position with these myths, doesn’t it? I wonder what your partner would think?” Despite the fact his cheeks were already red, Sierra thought she saw him blush.

Droning cut through the conversation, then Echo spoke. “Shoul’ res’, Sarge. Rise early. Assaul’ ‘fore sunrise, sur’rise enemy when ligh’ shif’s.”

Sierra checked her watch, then set an alarm. “Done. If this is your way of telling me you’re tired, feel free to drop, but I’m going to stay up a bit longer. You want in or out?” She popped open the small two-socket ball rig among the other pieces of gear around her wrist and looked back to her partner. Echo shook his head negative and turned to the tent, shuffling off.

Though his current line was blank, Brand continued staring at his page. Sierra put her arm around him again, this time waist level, and ducked her head to look at the side of his face. “Don’t hurt yourself straining for words, there. You don’t have to say anything. I’m just happy I’ve got you back.”

He returned her look, straightening her back with his sudden intensity. Sky-blue eyes rimmed in gold flicked back and forth between her own. As they sucked in all her attention, she hoped he’d find what he was looking for. When he finally broke contact with a sigh, she found herself sighing too, then had to catch herself before she fell into him.

He slid his charcoal stick into a small makeshift holder on the cord he hung his notebook on, then stood up. As she recovered her balance, he moved behind her and dropped back to the ground. She drew her legs up as he placed his on either side of her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and rested his head atop hers. She smiled and leaned back into him, burying herself in his warmth. Her idle hand resting on her leg pinched her calf. Not dreaming, not this time.

* * *

 

A gentle chiming woke Echo from his slumber. He angled his wings to pinpoint the source before he fully rose, then snatched Sierra’s wrist-gadgetry up to turn it off. He held the stud that lit the watch’s face. It read exactly the time he’d hoped to rise. Some day Sierra will fail to anticipate his needs, but not today.

He looked over to his sergeant, asleep on her mat in the arms of the flightless bird. Her breathing hadn’t changed pace or intensity; the alarm had likely remained under her threshold of hearing. Good, she could use the rest, it gave him time to think. Her leadership was invaluable and unerring, but he was the one who strode the battlefield. Time to figure out how he was going to blow himself up this time.

He spared a glance to Brand’s sleeping face, half-buried in Sierra’s hair. The bird would have to wait to prove himself. He was fairly strong, but strength alone was never enough.

Snatching up his ballistic vest, he shrugged it into place and secured its fasteners. Few other pokémon realized what it really felt like to be as naked as they usually were. Twenty years of safety, however, is hard to do without. His armor came off only to sleep and at Sierra’s express request. He checked the vest’s binocular holster for its cargo, and stepped out into the night.

Orienting himself towards the previous day’s direction of travel, he jumped into the air. A slow rise took him to the top of a nearby tree, and he settled down and looked into the distance. Several seconds passed while his eye-covers finished their shift to full transparency. With the binoculars’ help, he could barely make out a stepped stone pyramid in the forest of an island just off the closest stretch of shoreline. As he held out his wings to focus on it, a figure on top turned to face him and held a limb out.

Despite the near-silence before dawn, distance still muted the twang of an arrow’s release. Echo tracked the projectile’s quiet whistle as it arced through the air across the intervening distance. He unleashed a blast of flame as far as he could project under the arrow’s path, and maintained it until the arrow passed over it. The whistle changed character as the thermal updraft disturbed the projectile’s flight, and the arrow started to tumble uselessly. Cupping his wings closer to track its fall, he reached out and snatched it from the air. Flying true, he decided, would resulted in a near miss over his head. Perfect for a warning shot. His opponent was more skilled than he’d thought.

He brought the binoculars up to his eyes again, making sure the tip of the arrow he held didn’t touch his face. The figure wasn’t in a ready position for another shot. Nor was it even facing him, he discovered; the Decidueye looked to be shielding her face with a wing. Echo dropped down through the branches – not eager to risk a second arrow, even wearing his vest – as he thought on this. Big eyes would take awhile to recover from bright lights in the night, wouldn’t they?

To take advantage of the remaining darkness, they’d have to move up the timetable. Echo hesitated once inside the tent, staring at his sergeant’s sleeping form. A quiet sigh settled the matter in his head; she could get more rest later. Wing vibrations hummed in an undulating melody, slowly growing louder. Sierra and Brand began to stir.

“Morning, Sarge,” Echo droned quietly upon stopping the tune. “Mission rea’y.”

Sierra grunted and immediately rolled off her sleeping bag to start preparations. Brand remained there, blinking and looking confused. Echo huffed to himself and turned away to check over his own gear. The bird would have to learn discipline.

“If you’re up before me,” Sierra eventually began, “you must have been poking about. What did you learn?”

“Enemy is as s’illed as initial info says. If no’ more. Fire is effe’ive. May use to visually im’air.”

“Flare would be better,” Sierra said, as she fished through a box of shotgun shells. “What distance are we talking?”

“Far.”

After shooting him a vaguely irritated look, Sierra repeatedly racked her shotgun’s slide to empty it, then started loading it with new ammunition. “I’ll launch the first one, your dinky pistol can’t throw a flare far enough. I assume the approach across the sandbar is covered?”

“I will say yes.”

“Good enough. Then I’ll launch from the forest on this side. It might not last long enough; I’ll need you to distract her.”

“She sees far, may fin’ you ‘fore you’re in ‘lace.”

Sierra pressed her lips into a thin line and looked Echo over. “You’re- you’ll suggest you draw fire next, won’t you?”

“Of ‘ourse I will.”

Echo puffed his chest out, but Sierra just quirked her lips and returned to her work. “One of these days, I’ll finally convince you that you don’t need to actively try to get yourself killed anymore.”

“I’m always fine.”

“So far.” Sierra muttered.

Brand, finally sitting up, looked back and forth between the two. After a moment of what looked to Echo like complete bewilderment, the Blaziken reached behind Sierra’s pack to pull out his notebook and started to write. Whatever he was going to say, Echo wasn’t interested. With a derisive snort, Echo walked out of the tent, snatching up the arrow he’d planted in the ground outside its entrance.

Moments later, Sierra joined him. He handed the arrow over without a word, and was not surprised when anger flashed across her face. “You’re not fucking target practice, Echo,” she scolded him, waving the arrow’s fletching around inches from his face.

“Ol’ ha’its.”

“Fuck off.”

“Yes, Sarge.” He turned and hopped into the air, flying towards the coast.

Several minutes passed after he settled in position just inside the treeline, and still he heard nothing from his walkie-talkie. The flightless one must be holding her back. Just about dead weight. He entertained himself by coming up with as many unflattering epithets for the Blaziken as he could imagine until his radio crackled to life.

“We’re ready.”

Echo sprang up into the air and perched atop the nearest tree. He angled his wings about where he thought the temple should be, and focused a loud whine towards it. Twelve seconds later, a faint crack rang out from his right, and a bright white star rose from the beach into the air. He jumped off his tree and dove for the shore, leveling out five meters above the water and paralleling Sierra’s sprint and Brand’s loping gait across a sandbar. _Low tide; lucky timing._

The light above them started to flicker. The flare would only last until she was about halfway across.

Banking around to hover over the sandbar, Echo pulled his own flare gun from his vest and stuffed a round into it. A little more altitude brought the structure into view of his unaided vision; the top step rose just under the tops of the shorter level of trees. The Decidueye stood on it, staring at Sierra and Brand’s progress as she drew forth another arrow. Echo raised his flare gun and fired it straight at her. The bright spark that issued forth flew a pitiful distance before it started arcing towards the ground, but the Decidueye turned away and shielded her face once more.

His sergeant and her charge disappeared into the treeline ahead, now darkening with the death of the second flare. Echo turned back towards the mainland at a shallow dive, then banked around with his left wingtip almost touching the water. If he could pick up enough speed, he’d be too fast to track through-

A lance of pain shot through the center of his right wing, killing his altitude. He plowed through sand with his left wing held high, his right dragging across the wet sandy surface. Whatever that arrow had done, he felt like his dragging wing was being shredded. When he’d stopped he looked to it, expecting to see it mostly torn off. Instead, in lieu of any physical damage, a glowing misty tendril connected it to a translucent arrow jutting out of the water a dozen meters distant. The tether felt like it was tugging on him; when he attempted to move away, the pain intensified. As he lay, his right arm was pinned, but he couldn’t bear to free it.

He snarled and looked towards his assailant, raising his good wing to listen to her movements. A twang heralded another arrow, and he threw an arc of flame in front of himself to intercept it. A puff of hot ash dusted his face.

He pulled two rounds off his vest, and shoved the red one into his flare gun, struggling to do so with only one hand and his teeth. The bright light arced into the air: _Unsafe!_ This one didn’t seem to have the same effect on the Decidueye, and she nocked another arrow. Echo rammed the second round into the gun, wincing when he heard the grit of sand, but the blue light followed red well enough. _Relocate!_

This time, the owl did flinch. Sierra could now continue into the structure unimpeded, and she’d be on her way. Echo could wait for her return. Flame protected his head and his vest protected his body; the Decidueye would have to close within his range to do any real damage. He could knock her out then, and be freed.

Another twang of an arrow’s release. Echo filled the air in front of him with fire again. He saw the head emerge unscathed from the torrent with just enough spare time to realize it was a clear head shot.

The projectile’s tip smashed straight through the center of his face.

His brain did its best to jump out the back of his skull, if his newfound pain was any indication. He heard the projectile hit the sand only a meter and a half behind him, but that was enough to induce the worst headache he’d ever experienced. Keeping his good wing held high and facing the enemy, he craned his long neck back as far as he could. The pain lessened.

A crack sounded from the forest. At the bottom edge of his vision he saw a sphere arc over the treetops and land several meters away. What was she still doing here, giving herself away like this?

Waterlogged as it was, the sand still responded to his nudges. He forced the ground underneath it upward, popping it up in the air towards him. Halfway through its downward arc, he snatched the military pokéball out of the air with his free arm.

A red blur launched over the trees, arcing towards the top of the stone structure. A spear of flame ignited from its leading edge, and the Decidueye squawked in alarm loud enough to be heard from Echo’s position. Despite the fact its trajectory was nowhere close to hitting her, the owl took to wing and flew away. Though Echo’s ethereal wounds still hurt, the tugging sensation ceased. He smashed the activation stud of his pokéball against his forehead.

The world flipped upside-down. The pokéball landed level enough that the sensor strip around its rim offered Echo a good field of view. Brand shot from the top of the structure towards the sandbar. He touched down and launched into the air once more, one leg extended out towards Echo’s pokéball. Echo’s vision went black for a moment as Brand’s talon closed around the ball, brightening again to reveal a whirling landscape. It ceased its whirl only for a moment before blurring with motion once more, this time vertically. At the apex of his jump, the view shifted chaotically, finally stabilizing within the cage of Brand’s claws.

_So the bird has some quick moves after all._

A journey of trees was punctuated by glimpses of the massive tiers of the stepped pyramid, all blurring by at breakneck speeds, and ended at the darkened interior of the edifice. Sierra, a flashlight now strapped to her shoulder, rushed towards Brand and snatched the ball out of his hands. The feed cut out, and Echo’s consciousness with it.

* * *

 

“Sorry,” Brand barely heard Sierra mutter as she shrunk the pokéball to a smaller size. While he was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that tiny capsule contained a Flygon, Sierra fiddled with several objects, inserting the ball into one end of a strange cylinder, and a different small object into the other. A light flashed on the tube, accompanied by a chime. Sierra withdrew the second object and threw it on the ground. With a growl, she crushed it under a heavy stomp of her boot.

Brand reached out to place a claw on Sierra’s shoulder as she tried – and at first, failed – to contain her heavy breathing. She looked about to snarl at him when her head snapped around, but upon locking eyes, her expression softened. “Sorry, lemme just-” She broke off with a huff, and Brand gestured to the crushed capsule. “Just medicine, empty now. Don’t worry about it.”

Sierra looked down at Echo’s shrunken ball, cradled in her palm. “You’re going to get me killed some day,” Sierra mumbled, before expanding it and calling the Flygon out. She looked Echo up and down before speaking again. “We could have still made it.” Echo didn’t reply, or even move. Sierra sighed and ran a hand through her hair, then, “Thanks.”

This time, Echo gave her a look of surprise. “Jus’ my role, Sarge.”

“Hasn’t been for months, Echo. I took you in so you wouldn’t have to do that anymore, not to throw you into new, more dangerous scenarios.” She waved a hand in exasperation, “But you still call me that, so I don’t know when it’s going to sink in.”

“Never, Sarge.”

“Of course not. Ping the floor, Brand indicated we have to descend through a dozen levels. I want to make sure this thing won’t collapse while we’re down there.”

Echo took several steps backward and stretched his wings out, angling them by minute amounts. Sierra looked to Brand and pointedly covered her ears. Brand followed suit, as best he could. He could still hear of the ensuing pulse of sound, as much as he felt the vibrations in his feet.

The Flygon looked back to Sierra with a tilted head. “Soli’ s’one, all the way.”

“Can’t be, there’s stairs descending right over there.” Sierra looked over to the stone step incredulously. “Whatever. We’ll worry about it as we go through it, then. We need to move, that owl’s going to be back soon.”

With a shrug, Echo started walking in the direction Sierra indicated. Brand pulled his notebook up and scribbled a quick message, flashing it to Sierra as she bent down to gather her gear. _‘The ones ahead are numerous, but weaker.’_

“I’m counting on it,” Sierra grumbled, hefting her shotgun.

They arrived at the first level, and Sierra took the lead, with Echo falling to the back of their little group. Brand wasn’t used to this middle position, and he felt a little hemmed in. Shouldn’t he be in front, since they had no experience with what they were about to encounter? Elty said mystery dungeons didn’t exist here. He couldn’t stop to write anything, at the pace they were moving. He could only hope they could improvise.

It wasn’t long before they ran into their first feral. Brand gathered himself to charge at the Poliwhirl, but Sierra lifted her tube-like weapon to her shoulder and fired first. A loud bang rang out, and the pokémon jumped backwards. Sierra pumped the shotgun and fired again, this time driving the Poliwhirl down the corridor and out of sight. Brand stooped to pick up one of the projectiles that had ricocheted off the feral and examined it. The small cloth-like pouch felt like it was filled with gravel, but Brand found no opening.

“Nothing s’ecial,” Echo droned, looking over Brand’s shoulder as he inspected the beanbag. “More where i’s from.”

Brand suppressed a shiver at the sensation of Echo’s false voice sounding on both sides of him, and disguised it as shrug. He stowed it in a pouch tied to the cord over his shoulder, then hurried to catch up to Sierra ahead. She led them out into an open room. Besides a flight of stairs leading down to the next level in one corner, it was completely empty. “What? That’s it?” Sierra asked, spinning around to find anything to justify the room’s existence.

 _‘Space is random,’_ Brand wrote, showing her when he finally caught her attention with a tug on her sleeve. He then continued, _‘There is no structure here, no reason. Do not waste the effort searching for it.’_

Sierra gave him a sidelong glance as she turned back to the stairs. “This is dumb as hell.”

“Is i’?” Echo asked

“He says this place isn’t,” she waved her hands around in exasperated silence for a moment, “stable? Fixed? Says it’s random all the way down. What kind of fucked up shit is that?”

“Nonsense.”

“Yeah, like I was saying,” Sierra replied, walking toward the stairs. She peered down the descent as if it was filled with teeth. “Absolute nonsense.” After an overly-critical inspection, she led the group down to the next level.

The next room was entirely vacant as well. Once more Sierra looked around, but her eyes widened when she’d turned to look back the way they came. Behind them was a solid wall, no signs of stairs anywhere. “How the fuck are we supposed to get out?”

Brand fingered his exploration badge, fixed to the cord over his shoulder. _That can remain a secret until the end._ He only wrote, _‘We get to the bottom.’_

“You could have told us about this bullshit before we went down,” Sierra grumbled. Echo, after reading the paper, gave him a very displeased look. “Fine, whatever,” Sierra eventually said, loading two shells into her shotgun and turning to face a darkened hall. “We better get moving then. Let’s get this shit over with.”

* * *

 

“We’re clear!” Sierra shouted over the chittering horde. She turned back to look down the steps again. Brand had already descended and was no longer visible from where she stood, on the threshold. She then returned her attention to Echo, who was slowly backing towards her, away from the dozen or so pokémon who had appeared quite literally out of nowhere. “Come on!”

Instead of following, Echo braced himself and spread his wings. Sierra hopped down a few steps and crouched, hands over her ears, as she watched on. A faint keening still reached her ears, terminating with a loud boom that made her eyes jump in her sockets. All the pokémon around Echo were now lying on their backs, though some already started to recover. Echo jumped into the air, turning towards the stairs even as his wings adjusted themselves for flight, and zoomed right over Sierra’s head. He fell to the steps as soon as he noticed her, and grabbed the straps of her backpack from behind, tugging her down with him.

“Hey, alright, fine, get off me!” Sierra protested, then gave him a light push in return once she’d managed to turn around. The pair finally descended to the lowest level of the complex.

Unlike the other oddly empty rooms connected with random halls, the bottom floor was one massive chamber with several prominent features. To Sierra’s left sat a curious fountain, made out of a monolithic piece of stone. A soft blue-ish glow suffused the ceiling above, and as Sierra got closer, she saw the water to be incredibly clear, sparkling with a slightly blue tint. A trickling stream flowing from a crack in the upper part of the stone filled the chamber with a soothing sound. Echo stood nearby, peering into the water intently.

The other object, however, was clearly artificial. The right side of the chamber was dominated by a massive arc of stone, like half a ring thrust straight up through the rock. The front surface was smooth, but the outer curve was much rougher, obviously worked by hand. Runes were engraved on the smooth front face, equally spaced. A squat slab sat in front of it, and atop that slab rested a curious piece of technology. Its bulky components advertised its old age. Wires ran from this device to a matrix of crystals embedded in the slab’s front in a regular pattern; Sierra recognized them as sourced from Alola.

Between these two features sat a large stone pillar. Large plates adorned it, iridescent with disrepair or decay. Runes matching those on the gate decorated the pillar, in a pattern suggesting a relation to the plates. Brand paced back and forth between the pillar and the gate, notebook open in one hand as he took notes.

The Blaziken appeared totally oblivious to the fact a mummified human corpse sat slumped to one side at the pillar’s base, facing the way the three had arrived.

Sierra slowly made her way over to the pillar, as if making too much noise would literally wake the dead. The figure was wearing a long coat and heavy, utilitarian clothing. A collection of objects rested in its lap. Sierra could immediately recognize a notebook and a pistol, and when she closed, she found a lighter and a large assortment of pokéball shards. Despite how small each individual piece was, she could recognize it was from a model many decades old. On one side of the corpse was a pile of ash, and on the other, stretching before the arch, was a long reddish-brown stain.

After gently picking up the revolver from the corpse’s limp grasp, she checked it over. She’d never handled a top-break revolver before, but the action was easy enough to figure out. Though she already knew what she’d find, she released the top latch and swung the barrel and cylinder down. One round had been fired.

The journal was a curious little thing. The dog-eared cover was torn and had little bits of gravel embedded in it, and the strap of elastic that kept it closed had long since worn away. Inside, many of its yellowed pages had been ripped out; only one remained. A cramped script filled both sides of it, at times obscured with dried blood. Sierra used her cell phone to take a picture of both sides of the remaining page, then read them.

‘… _unlike anything I’ve seen before. I’ve no idea where the rest of the research team’s gotten off to, but they didn’t pop out around here.’_

 _‘How exactly it is that the_ _other side_ _also knew how to build something like this is mind boggling. It’s the same huge circular arch, but it’s not as fancy. I get the feeling this end was built in a hurry, as much of the stone work is rough. There’s not as many metal adornments or intricate carvings, and some parts of it are downright ugly. Like they were trying to be efficient for some reason.’_

 _‘The console is as unassuming as the one we used. Just a flat onyx slab of rock with a single hole for the power source. If I_ _had_ _a power source on me I could see if there’s any deviation in the interface but…’_

‘… _pretty sure anyway. There’s a set of mirrors alongside this one pillar, it looks just like the one back on our side. The mirrors aren’t as clean - again, lower quality material it seems, and they’re a little misshapen, but my guess is they work? The gate on our side was so brilliant compared to this one. The metal isn’t humming, the glass bulbs filled with gods-know-what aren’t glowing, and the mirrors don’t shine and reflect those fractal patterns. I wish there was a way to power this. The holes on the console_ _do_ _look like they might… Could they?’_

_‘...things I’ve ever done in my life. How could I have been so stupid? That was the only friend that made it through and I went and threw it all away on a dumb hunch. How am I supposed to to get out of this cave without my Crobat? I should have never stuck his pokeball in that divot. I’m sorry Pete, I’m so sorry. I don’t know where the pieces went and one of them cut my hand really bad. I’m sorry Petey, I’m so sorry, I should have called you out first.’_

_‘I will make sure nobody repeats my mistake. Please forgive me.’_

Sierra gently set the notebook back down, resting against one of the dead researcher’s legs, and placed the revolver beside it. When she stood, she found Echo standing beside her. Brand had moved on to examining the piece of technology atop the slab.

 _‘We need to turn it on,’_ Brand wrote to her as she approached. He held another piece of paper in his claw, ripped from his notebook and folded up.

The device was clearly assembled on the spot, with no casing or frame; just an assortment of analog components placed together in a way that fit everything atop the slab, and in many cases, atop each other. A large red button stuck out one side of the mass. With no other controls apparent, Sierra reached out and pushed it.

A grinding shriek echoed through the chamber, and the arch was filled with an eerie purplish-blue light. A white grid pattern flickered across the strange energy projection for several seconds, before the whole spectacle disappeared. The red button popped out to its original position with a loud clack. Quiet returned, only interrupted by the babbling fountain.

Suddenly, Sierra was wrapped in Brand’s arms. “Hey, yeah, we got you here,” she laughed, hugging him back. “Now we just need-” She felt a tugging at one of her backpack’s pockets. “What are you doing back there?” When she tried to turn, she felt a metallic object resting against her neck. It pushed into her skin. A button on it depressed.

The world went white.

“No!” Sierra screamed, spinning around to take in her new surroundings. She was back in the center of the ground floor. She found the stairs down and sprinted to them, shouting wordlessly down into their depths.

A loud, high-pitched whine prompted her to turn around, and Echo emerged from a beam of pale yellow light. He looked incredibly angry, but all expression left his face when he saw Sierra. After blinking a couple times, he started his speech-drone. “He has some nice moves.”

He lurched forward when an arrow thumped into the back of his ballistic vest.

“Away from the entrance!” Sierra shouted, before sprinting to one wall. Echo crawled belly-down across the floor to reach her. He looked at her for orders, but something behind her attracted his attention. As he reached to pull something from her backpack, she snatched the arrow hanging loosely from his armor. Only the very tip was bloodied. When she brought it around to show him, he handed her a piece of paper.

“Shoul’ fire a flare,” he droned.

“And then what, run out into the field of fire of an enemy whose location we don’t even know? No, lets…” Sierra trailed off when one side of the folded page revealed writing.

_‘Thank you.’_

A surge of anger welled inside her, but she bit it back and opened the paper.

_‘I know you are probably upset, but I could not let you follow me. I have learned things of humans that would destroy the world I am from. But I gave you and Elty my word; I will be back very soon, and with reinforcements. Wait in the first chamber. Chryse never dares enter the shrine.’_

Sierra growled and let the paper drop to the floor. “Alright, we’ll be safe in here, I guess.” She sat on the stone floor and held her face in her hands. “We’ll wait them out.”

* * *

 

Brand stepped out into the sparse chamber, and the gate behind him winked out moments later. It looked exactly as he remembered, six years ago, complete with the strange round object resting in its socket on the control slab. Good; nobody had been here since. He shifted the cord over his shoulder and looked down at the device in his hand.

It looked like a slimmer version of Echo’s light-thrower. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but Sierra had partially dismantled it for some reason, then put it back together. The writing stamped on it matched some of the human language’s symbols. He regretted not being able to bring Sierra and Echo, but prophecy was prophecy: only two beings would leave that gate when he returned.

He shoved the weapon’s thicker end into one of his pouches. Satisfied he was all in order, he thumbed the activation stud on his explorer’s badge, and closed his eyes as he was beamed to the strange edifice’s entrance. When he opened his eyes, pristine forest greeted him.

 _Moment of truth._ He pressed the button again.

Once more he was whisked away.

He appeared at the outskirts of a small town. Pokémon milled about the marketplace, visible from where he stood in the morning light. None looked towards him; explorers appearing at the edge of town after dungeon runs was common enough to not warrant notice. Even still, he felt a pang of loneliness. He was back after all this time, and nobody cared. Besides that; a strange sense of detachment. The town hadn’t changed much to him, but maybe he’d changed too much to the town. As much as he’d wanted to be back, six years was a long time. He worried about this lack of reaction for awhile, until deciding it was probably for the best. This time, he was only visiting, and it might be even longer until he was back again.

As he got closer, one pokémon proved him wrong. A Hakamo-o browsing a market stall caught his eye and stood stunned. He immediately dropped what he was looking at on the counter and sprinted towards Brand full-tilt, plowing to a stop a mere handful of steps away. Upon looking Brand over, he once more lapsed into shocked silence.

‘You’re looking well, Kam,’ Brand said, smiling. He looked to the badge pinned to Kam’s yellow armband, and the smile widened into a grin. Where Brand’s activation stud was gold, Kam’s featured a blue gem. ‘And I see you and Ruka have been hard at work.’

This snapped Kam out of his reverie, and he looked to the ground. ‘Well, we couldn’t wait forever.’

‘I didn’t expect you to,’ Brand replied in a gentle tone.

Kam looked back up, and this time he too smiled. ‘We knew you would eventually come back. You always keep your promises.’

‘About that,’ Brand said, rubbing the back of his head. ‘Can we head back to the base? I have something important to talk to the team about.’

A look of worry crossed Kam’s face just before he turned back to the town. ‘Yeah sure. C’mon.’

The town had changed little, for all Brand’s time away. The market was a little bigger, and he didn’t recognize half the stalls. A new road had been started away from the main square, but there weren’t many structures making use of it. It remained the same sleepy frontier village of his memories and dreams.

They arrived at an open wooden shed, covering a wooden trapdoor. ‘I hope she doesn’t kill you,’ Kam muttered, pulling open the hatch and descending. Brand followed suit, and marveled at how different from his recollections the space he emerged into looked. _Rasi’s been working just as hard as the rest of the team._

‘Ruka! You’ll never guess who I found,’ Kam called out into the surprisingly cavernous subterranean space.

‘What a nice introduction,’ Brand mumbled. Kam looked back at him with a cheeky grin, before snapping his focus back forward when the pair heard footfalls.

A Lucario rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks. Brand couldn’t catch how many emotions crossed her face when she laid eyes on him, but the one that remained behind was anger. ‘Back from your little vacation?’ Ruka snorted at her own barb and looked him over, eyes catching on the large scar running down his left thigh. ‘I see you’ve been getting into fights again.’

‘Training to get back.’ Brand couldn’t hold her gaze anymore. ‘Couldn’t do it. I still had to get help.’

‘You always need help, you stubborn asshole,’ Ruka snarled.

‘But I finally made it back. I told you I’d always come back safe. And I’m here now.’

‘You’re here now,’ she echoed. Brand risked catching her eyes again, and saw the beginning of tears. ‘Six years later, and you just walk in like nothing happened!’

‘I wasn’t-’

‘You weren’t thinking about us, were you? Just thought you’d hang out in a dungeon for years and come back whenever you felt like?’

Brand’s expression darkened. ‘You know me better than that. You can sense better than that; six years isn’t long enough to forget your talents. But if you won’t believe it?’ He cut the cord over his shoulder with his beak, then threw his notebook on the ground at Ruka’s feet. ‘You can read for yourself. You don’t know how many nights I was back here, with you, until I woke up.’

‘I-’ Ruka’s breath hitched as she looked down at the notebook, then back up to him. ‘I don’t…’

She rushed him then, turning as she wrapped her arms around him so she didn’t impale him on her chest spike, and wedging under his right arm. He moved her satchel out of the way and returned her embrace as she started to sob into his chest feathers. ‘Stubborn jerk,’ she mumbled, ‘Won’t make himself a liar.’

As Ruka cried, Kam bent down to pick up the notebook. He flipped through it with growing confusion. ‘What are these symbols? There’s so many of them, between your entries.’

Ruka looked back with an inarticulate noise of confusion, and Brand dropped the remains of his shoulder cord with a sigh. ‘That’s what I need to talk to you about. I wasn’t in the dungeon, these past years. I was in some other place, far away. I was learning the language of that place.’ He looked down at Ruka, who had turned back to him when he spoke. ‘The language of humans.’

Her eyes went wide, and she wiped her tears away. ‘No. I don’t believe you.’

Brand chuckled and reached down to his dropped pouches, and Ruka disengaged herself from him. ‘I didn’t think you would. Look at the notebook carefully; it’s of far better quality than any you can get here. But besides that, I brought proof.’ He produced the weapon he’d brought through the gate. ‘This is one of their tools. You can see here, it has some of their symbols imprinted on it.’ He pointed at a long line of small letters and numbers, turning it to face Ruka. ‘Right here.’

Despite its rugged metal frame, she took the weapon with a reverence and gentleness that one might afford a glass sculpture. ‘What does it do?’

‘I’m not sure what this one specifically does, I don’t know how it works. But I’ve seen a similar one that threw blazing lights across distances. Humans use them like attacks, since they don’t seem to have any their own, and pokémon handle them sometimes.’

‘How would you know that?’ she said, turning the weapon around in her paws.

‘I’ve met a couple of them.’

Her ears shot up at that. ‘I knew I smelled something strange on you. Did they help you come back?’

‘Yes, but,’ he shifted his weight to one foot to take half a step away from Ruka, ‘Only if I went back. I had to see you all again, but now they need my help. I wanted to ask you all to come with me.’

Ruka continued staring wordlessly at the tool in her hands, but Kam nervously looked down the hall. ‘Uh, I’ll get Rasi.’ He turned and left.

When Ruka finally looked up, she seemed on the verge of tears again. ‘How?’

‘You were right, that’s how. At the bottom of that dungeon was some remnants of human habitation. There was a gate there, and when I turned it on, I was sent to the heart of another dungeon. I left, but was accosted by some pokémon outside. They claimed to be protecting it from humans, but refused to help me go back through it to return home. They’re the ones who taught me all about humans, and a couple weeks into my time there, I ran into a pair.’ Brand gave a thin smile. ‘You were right, but not right enough. They’re not just from a different continent, they’re from a whole different world.’

‘What are they like?’

Brand wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’ll see soon enough, if you’ll come with me.’

For the first time since his return, Ruka smiled. ‘Of course, leader.’

‘Nah,’ Brand said, looking down the hall to Kam’s return, an Eevee in tow. ‘It looks like you’ve been doing a good enough job of that yourself.’

‘It’ll be nice to let you have it again,’ Ruka said, following his gaze. ‘For once, I think I could use a break.’

Kam stopped in front of the pair, and Rasi came around his side to look up at Brand. ‘Welcome home! I hope you like the changes.’

‘They’re better than I could have ever imagined,’ Brand replied with a smile. ‘But you’ll love some of the things I can show you now.’

‘I-’ Rasi hesitated and looked up to Kam, who nodded at her to continue. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t go back into a dungeon again, not yet.’

‘I want to stay here with her,’ Kam said. ‘She can’t be out on her own yet. Half the town still doesn’t trust her; they haven’t forgotten she used to be feral.’

‘I understand,’ Brand replied. ‘You won’t have any problems finding a good exploration partner, with the rank you’ve achieved. I have every confidence you’ll make a good team leader yourself, Kam.’

Kam puffed his chest out, a faint ringing sounding from his scales sliding across his back. ‘That means more than you could imagine, coming from you.’

‘If you ever feel you can make the trip later, you’re welcome. We’ll find a way to link up then. My acquaintance there is not kind, but her heart is in the right place. I’ll leave some of my maps and materials there for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Kam replied, then glanced at the ladder. ‘And good luck. If they need you, you should get going. Don’t make yourself a liar to them on our account.’

Ruka took Brand’s notebook from Kam and stowed it in her satchel, then started up the ladder while Brand gathered the rest of his meager belongings up. Before he too ascended, he gave Kam and Rasi one last look. ‘It was a pleasure exploring with you. I’m glad I got the chance to say goodbye properly.’

Kam said nothing, but gave a little salute. Rasi sat back on her haunches and waved a forepaw. Brand gave them a final nod, then ascended the ladder.

Ruka waited at the top, staring towards town. ‘Today was supposed to be our rest day.’

‘Sorry to interfere,’ Brand said. ‘Let’s go. I don’t know how much time they have.’

‘After you.’

* * *

 

Echo took one last bite of his snack and stuffed its wrapper in Sierra’s backpack. The jostling roused her from her nap, grumbling, and she checked her watch.

“It’s noon, where are they?”

Echo shrugged. “Shoul’ solve this ourselves.”

“Alright, alright, question is how? We walk out and get shot. It’s daylight now, so we can’t use flares against her.” Sierra shook her head to rid herself of the last of her nap.

“I han’le’ the las’ one no issues.”

“Only because it was a body shot. And what if the next one is a shackle? She’s going to want to keep us in her firing line; I can guarantee you she’s going to pin you before doing anything else.”

“I’ll ‘odge i’.”

“She’s probably close enough to have perfect accuracy, and that entrance isn’t exactly wide enough to maneuver in.” Sierra closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her knees. “Uh, she was the captain’s bird. She’s probably familiar with naval signals. Do you know any?” Echo shook his head. “Alright then, let’s think this through from the beginning.” She held out a hand and started ticking off fingers. “A destroyer is assigned to protect this island as a scientific expedition leaves. Transports escape but the destroyer is sunk. Everyone is presumed dead, but this pokémon survived. Now she tries to kill any approaching human. What are we missing here?”

Echo’s speech-drone began, but he was too busy thinking to speak. When he did speak, it was slowly. “She’s s’ill on her las’ mission.”

“After all this time?”

“Who woul’ ‘ell her otherwise?”

Sierra ran a hand through her hair. “Shit, you’re right. That makes way too much sense.” She looked over her own clothing, before examining Echo’s vest. “You’re wearing military gear. Think we can convince her to stand down?”

“Worth a sho’.”

“Alright.” Sierra sighed. "Neither of us can probably shout loud enough for her to hear. You’ll need to project sound far out, which means you’ll need a clear line out through the entrance. You’re going to have to take that first shackle; I doubt she’s let up her vigilance. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll survive.”

Picking up her shotgun, Sierra racked the slide until all the beanbag rounds were ejected. She pulled out several slugs and inserted them. “I really don’t want to have to use these. Make sure this goes well, alright?”

Echo nodded and stood straighter. With a deep breath, he walked into the middle of the room. He turned towards the entrance and held his wings low, angled to minimize the chances they’d be hit. A second and a half later, an arrow zipped out of the treeline. He shot flames before him to intercept it, but Sierra’s guess was right. The ethereal projectile slammed through his throat and lodged in the rear wall. He took two steps backwards to alleviate the choking sensation, then spread his wings, fighting against his own difficulty breathing to angle them right. In the left corner of his vision, Sierra took up a position just inside the entrance, then gave him a worried look.

“We wish a ‘onversation,” Echo said, focusing the sound as far out through the entrance as he could. A coughing fit overcame him then, which only served to intensify the pain in his neck the tether caused. He took another two steps backward.

 _There was no point; we’ll either starve to death or walk out to get shot._ Echo startled himself with the thought. He never once had thought before they weren’t going to make it out. In fact, he was pretty confident in his ability to walk out and live, despite Sierra’s misgivings. Even in his current situation, he rallied against the strange concern immediately. It didn’t sound like himself. How does one react to a thought they didn't think?

On a hunch, he spread his wings again. “More arrive. We leave on your ‘erms now, or our way soon enough.”

This time, it took several moments for an intrusive thought to present itself. _She wants to know who the others are._ That settles that.

Another two steps back, and he could start to breathe somewhat normally. “We’re Army. We’re here’a relieve you.”

_She doesn’t believe me._

“See for yourself, then. I wear new s’uff, though all the mar’s are there.”

_I should come out to show her, but the human should stay inside._

As Echo blinked away the weird way to refer to Sierra, the tether binding his throat to the rear wall dissipated, allowing Echo to walk forward. “Stop when you’re level with me,” Sierra said, quiet yet stern.

He halted just before the stone archway. “No further,” he said, directing the sound outside again.

_She doesn’t like it, but she’ll comply._

Several moments passed before a Decidueye appeared out of the woods. She landed at the edge of the clearing around the stone structure, then approached on foot. She cocked her head as she got closer. Echo helpfully pointed to the flag patches where his vest’s shoulder straps connected to the main body.

_No wonder that arrow didn’t faze me. She didn’t know it was body armor._

“You’re har’a un’ers’an’.”

_I’m no better._

“Well there’s my sergean’.”

 _I should tell them she’s sorry_.

“We’re alrigh’ now,” Echo said, turning to Sierra.

She walked out, still holding her shotgun, but pointing it towards the ground. Chryse immediately tensed and made to raise an arrow, but Sierra shouldered her weapon and pointed it at the owl first. “Down.”

_She wears no uniform under the jacket._

Echo was about to relay the concern, but Sierra spoke up first. “Yeah, I’m plainclothes. We’re relieving you, but we’re not here to replace you. In fact, I’ll just say it straight: I’m discharged. The war’s been over for a long time. You can come home now.”

Chryse stood motionless for a long time, before slotting the arrow she pulled back under her wing. _The sergeant’s soul shows no dishonesty. Chryse wishes to know what will happen to this place._

Sierra lowered her shotgun as well, and settled into a more relaxed stance. “It’s currently forbidden to come here without special permission, and that permission is hard to acquire.” Then, in a much gentler tone, she continued, “We’ve been sent by the descendants of those you protected, to honor your captain and shipmates.”

Chryse’s head turned almost entirely backwards, looking at something in the distance Echo couldn’t make out. _She wants to know if we’ve been to the bottom._

“We have,” Sierra replied.

_It must remain a secret._

“We won’t tell anyone, in exchange for one thing. We came to retrieve your ship’s bell. It will be kept in a place to remember your ship’s sacrifice.”

Chryse turned her head back to regard them harshly. _Our honoring of them will prevent her honoring of them._ _We drive a hard bargain._

“Those are our terms,” Sierra replied, some of the firmness returning to her tone.

_They are just barely acceptable._

The owl took to wing, then, flying off towards the direction she had previously looked. Sierra let out a long sigh. “That went better than I had expected.”

“You shoul’ have more faith,” Echo replied.

She regarded him with an incredulous stare. “In you? I’m always going to worry.”

* * *

 

Brand stumbled out of the gate and slumped out of Ruka’s supporting arms. ‘I forgot how much that took out of you,’ he sputtered. A coughing fit followed the broken words.

Ruka knelt down beside him and gave him a handful of berries from her satchel. ‘Here, we shouldn’t need any more. Have them all.’ She looked down at the brown stain in the stone floor beneath their feet, then followed it back to its original source. ‘Brand, is that-’

‘Don’t think about it,’ he rasped, between stuffing berries in his face as fast as his weakened state would allow. Slowly, he got to his unsteady feet again. ‘Alright, let’s get out of here.’

‘You said they needed your help, and you’re no help to anyone right now.’

Brand looked at Ruka, then wordlessly thumbed his new badge, fastened once more to a yellow armband. The chamber disappeared in a flash, replaced by the empty ground floor. A whine heralded a bright beam of light beside him, and Ruka remained when it departed. ‘I guess I’m going first,’ she muttered, striding for the entrance.

Beyond her stood Echo, outside. He felt his heart race. _They didn’t listen!_ In the distance, he saw Chryse on the wing, approaching fast. Echo didn’t seem to notice. He wreathed his wrists in flames then lurched into a run, meaning to push Ruka aside and come at Chryse as fast as possible. This Echo did hear, and with a sidelong glance, he thrust up a knee-high wall of dirt. Unable to stop in time, Brand tumbled over it, and emerged from the stone edifice in a skidding stop on his side.

“You’re la’e,” the Flygon intoned, as Brand slid to a halt next to him.

A sphere of light exploded on Echo’s shoulder, and he turned to regard Ruka. She swiped her hands in a series of quick motions, and a spark flashed between them. A strong air current pulled Echo towards her, but the Flygon threw himself into it, using the sudden motion to close the distance between them. He swept his tail around in an upward arc, knocking Ruka’s legs out from underneath her, then kicked her hard in the side as she fell, throwing her airborne again. He feathered his wings for more altitude as he rolled forward in midair, bringing his tail around in a downward arc this time to hammer her skull at the apex of her ascent. She hit the dirt hard, and didn’t attempt to get up.

“Echo! Stop beating up the help!” Sierra scolded, hurrying over to where Ruka lay.

“She sho’ firs’,” he responded indignantly. He then looked back to Brand. “You were more challenging, only jus’.”

 _I’m in a sorry state._ Brand sat up and looked to Chryse, landing beside him. _So I was the backup the sergeant mentioned._ He wiped the dirt from his face, hoping that the action would cleanse him of his confusion as well. What was a sergeant? He tried to rally himself before Chryse could draw a bead on Sierra, but the owl didn’t move to attack. Her strange feathery fingers were occupied with a large metal bell.

“Yes, he was. And yes, he is. I don’t know why they keep picking fights with Echo,” Sierra replied. Ruka rolled onto her side when Sierra spoke next to her. Brand saw her eyes go wide when she saw Sierra, and he couldn’t help but smile. When Sierra looked back down and saw Ruka’s expression herself, she too smiled, and held up a bottle. A stream of mist shot forth from it, and Ruka’s awe quickly shifted through alarm to bewilderment.

‘You remind me of when we first met, so wide-eyed,’ Brand told her as he stood and started walking towards the two.

‘It was a childhood dream,’ Ruka replied, trailing off. She looked back to Sierra.

Sierra, however, was looking at Brand. “Can she understand me? Did the medicine work?”

Brand shook his head. ‘She wants to know how you feel.’

‘Much better, thanks to whatever she did.’ Brand nodded to Sierra, then offered Ruka a hand. Ruka hauled herself up with it.

‘Last I was here, Chryse was trying to kill her,’ Brand said. He looked down at Ruka’s satchel, then. ‘Note?’

‘Oh, right,’ Ruka dug through the pack and produced a piece of paper. Brand took it and started walking back towards where Chryse and Sierra stood.

Chryse handed the bell over to Sierra. Sierra turned it over in her hands. Apparently satisfied with whatever she was looking for, handed it back to Echo. He promptly placed it on top of Sierra’s backpack, causing her to stumble backwards half a step. She gave the Flygon a look Brand couldn’t quite read.

He held out the page to her when he reached the group. She gave him a brief, hard look, but accepted it and opened it to read.

_‘I apologize for my deception. I couldn’t let you come with me, no matter what. You would change everything back home. Besides that, Elty had predicted only two would come through this second time. I did not want to risk stranding you there.’_

Sierra sighed and looked upward. “It’s fine. You’re back, I’m over it now.” She handed the page back then, “Wasn’t deception more than an omission. Thinking back, you steered our conversation away from me accompanying you, and I just assumed. You seem pretty dedicated to your promises, figures you’d be cagey about something you couldn’t commit to. And if I were you, I’d probably do the same; nothing to jeopardize my chances.”

Ruka joined them. ‘Did she accept your apology?’

‘Yeah. I was desperate, and she realizes that.’

Sierra was looking back at Chryse. “Are you sure you don’t want to come back?”

_She is sure. She appreciates that this place is forbidden ground. She will continue to enforce that prohibition._

“Alright. We’ll come back every now and then to check up on you. We won’t be able to come this close, but I’m sure you’ll be able to spot us.”

“We shoul’ leave,” Echo droned. “Arrive home ‘fore we lose ligh’. You have’a phone them.”

“Yeah, true,” Sierra said. She pulled out the small, strange tablet Brand remembered. The device started glowing, then quickly stopped again. “And I have no signal here. Let’s go. Chryse, it was nice meeting you, even if we started on the wrong foot. Er, talon. Whatever.”

 _She is thankful for our efforts to honor her captain and ship._ Chryse turned to Brand before the next thought formed. _And she is happy I got to see home again, even if she disagrees with my methods._

When Sierra turned to look them over, she caught Ruka’s awestruck expression as she stared at Sierra’s phone. She smiled and held it up to Ruka, turning the screen on again. “This is just the start of the crazy things I can show you.”

‘What did she say?’ Ruka couldn’t take her eyes off the display until Sierra pocketed the device again.

‘You’ll see many more wonders than just that,’ Brand said, falling in behind Sierra as she started to walk away. He eyed the bell perched atop her pack, mentally preparing himself to catch it should it fall. ‘And, even forewarned, I’ll admit I’m a little awestruck too, just at the opportunity.’

‘I can’t wait.’

* * *

 

That night, Chryse flew out to the ship. _Full moon; unlucky timing._

Once she flew out over the water, the wreck of the _Natsuzuki_ came into view, only the uppermost portions exposed to the night air. By now Chryse was intimately familiar with every pit, every rent armor plate, every millimeter of the gaping wounds left by exploding shells and the magazine detonation they’d caused. Even still, they brought her pain like that very first night she was suddenly nearly alone.

She landed on the mast’s radar platform and looked out across the water. A human form faded into being next to her. “You didn’t ring the bell today, and now it’s gone. Is something wrong?” the specter said.

Chryse looked the familiar figure over, taking in his impeccable captain’s uniform and clean-shaven face. It was never the same as seeing her trainer in the flesh, but it was all she had. “They came to take it away.”

“They?” The ghost turned to her with an expression half amused, half bemused.

“Used to be army, but not anymore. They still respect the uniform, and came to see that we were properly remembered. They wanted the bell for display, on behalf of the convoy we protected.” Chryse looked from his face back out to sea. “Those we saved still remember. I’m glad.”

“No you aren’t.”

Chryse sighed. “The war is over. It ended a long time ago, I guess.”

“You should have let that Espeon go. What was her name?”

“She never got one. She just had me call her LT.”

“Well, that’s not very fair.”

“No it isn’t,” Chryse replied, more forcefully than she intended. Softer, then, “And she stayed of her own accord.”

“She stayed because you had my authority.”

Chryse looked back to the island, and the large shrine it supported. “I suppose. I was thankful for the company. Now Brand is gone too, and we’re alone again.”

The captain leaned forward to catch her gaze, far enough that, had he been flesh and blood, he’d have fallen. “We don’t have to be. If the war’s over, we can go home.”

“No,” Chryse said, vision running with held-back tears. “You can’t, and I won’t. There’s nothing for me there, without you.”

“I can go home, just not where you could join me.”

Tears flowed freely, now. “What are you saying?”

“If the war’s over, we did our duty. You can let me go.”

Chryse wanted to argue, but found she couldn’t. She looked her trainer in the eyes. She saw sympathy there; he knew what it would do to her. But he was right. He’d been chained to this cursed wreck long enough. Maybe the sailors were right, after all. Her presence had doomed them, and now she only prolonged his suffering.

Without another word, she stood and jumped off the radar platform. Winging around the superstructure, she located and glided through the ragged hole in the side of the bridge where a shell had penetrated. She landed beside the obliterated helm station.

The captain’s skeleton lay in the middle of the bridge, where the blast and shrapnel had felled him during the battle. Unlike his phantom’s pristine appearance, his real uniform was nothing but sun-bleached tatters of cloth. An arrow protruded from his ribcage, faintly glowing purple

With a wave of one wing, the arrow exploded into a thousand motes of light.

She flew back to the radar platform, and once more stood beside the ghost. “It’s done. The effect will wear off with the sunrise.”

“Oh? And will I be able to stay that long, this time?”

“I believe so.”

The captain looked out to the east, towards the mainland. “That’s good. Just like old times, then. It’ll be nice to see one more with you, after all this time.”


	2. Part 1: Connect

    [COMPILATION COMPLETE]

    Hugh jolted awake after his computer loudly chimed its success. He rubbed sleep’s remains out of his eyes with one hand, while he probed his desk for his mug of coffee with the other. Cold, it turned out, once he found it. He grumbled and shoved it further away, where it clinked against two others.

    “Garvan. Garvan?” The scientist looked around the room. How was it possible to lose a one-ton supercomputer? After several seconds of searching, he located the wall panel right in front of his face, and keyed it on. “Garvan, please return to the lab.” His voice echoed faintly through the mansion’s first-floor halls.

    A young female voice replied, “He’s coming, Uncle.”

    Hugh stared at the wall panel for a moment before keying it again. “Sheri, what are you doing up? It’s...” He looked over to a small clock on his desk, half-buried in papers. “Oh. Sorry.”

    “If you ever opened the blackout curtains in there, you wouldn’t be surprised by afternoon. It comes every day, try to keep up.”

    Hugh finally stood from his desk, stretching and popping joints as he walked towards the windows. He opened the thick, heavy curtains and immediately recoiled, then shielded his face as if the sun had just slapped him. Repeating this process twice more drove away most of his residual tiredness. He still wanted a cup of coffee, though.

    When he turned back towards his desk, a Metagross stood in the opened double doors leading to his unofficial laboratory. He snatched a piece of ersatz hardware off his desk and strode over to Garvan to fix it to the side of the silver cross dominating the pokémon’s face. “How long have we been working on this iteration?” he asked, as he stuffed a similarly cobbled-together device into his ear.

    “Thirty-seven hours, forty-one minutes, and twenty-six seconds,” Garvan replied in monotone through the oversize earbud. “Including your rest periods, which – knowing you – were unintentional.”

    “Absolutely. I mean, I absolutely meant to sleep. At my desk.” Hugh turned around to his displays again. “It’ll screw itself up if I leave, and we can’t have that.”

    “If you say so,” Garvan intoned, then lifted all four of his legs to hover into one corner of the room.

    “I need you firing on all four cylinders now,” Hugh said, collapsing into his chair with a thud that resounded even through the lab’s solid floor. “Lets see what went wrong this time.” He hit the enter key on one of the two keyboards on his desk.

    [COMPILATION COMPLETE]

    He swore to himself, slid that keyboard down a gap between his desk and a bookshelf to his left, and hit the enter key on the other keyboard.

    A bright light shot out of a dismantled pokéball connected to his computer. A Porygon-Z materialized in the middle of the floor, in a motionless heap. Hugh hurried over to it and fixed a device to its head similar to the one attached to Garvan. “Can you understand me, Novo?” He looked back and forth between his two pokémon, wringing his hands and holding his breath. As he spun back towards his desk, he finally got his reply.

    “I can,” his earbud transmitted, in a higher, thinner voice than Garvan’s.

    Hugh released a long sigh of relief. “Alright. We’ve gotten farther than the last several attempts then. How are you feeling?”

    “Normal, surprisingly! I can think and recall with complete clarity. As far as I can tell, I have all my mental faculties!”

    “Excellent. You don’t look too comfortable, though.” Hugh sat down at his desk and spun the chair to look at where the Porygon-Z lay.

    “Well, I can’t really-” Novo’s voice cut out. Hugh leaned forward, grimacing, until it came back. “I can’t feel anything, actually. I can’t move either.”

    Movement near the double doors brought Hugh’s head up before he could reply. His niece Sheridan stood there, wearing her backpack and dressed for the warm summer weather outdoors. “What did you do to her now?” she inquired, staring at Novo.

    “She wanted to try a new look.”

    Sheridan walked over to the stricken pokémon and knelt down, gathering what she could into her arms. “It’s alright, but her normal body is cuter.”

    Hugh’s earpiece came to life again. “Alright, no, I can feel this. It doesn’t feel good. Can I go back, now? I want to look cute again, and this is very uncomfortable.”

    “She agrees,” Hugh said. “I’ll change her back. Ready for your last day of school?”

    “My last day of school was three days ago,” Sheridan said, easing Novo’s upper body down and standing again. “You were there, at my graduation.” She fixed him with a look that was both confused and concerned. “Did you just wake up?”

    “I... yeah, no getting it by you. Sorry. Where are you going, then?”

    “A friend of mine is getting her first pokémon, and I want to be there for her.”

    Garvan’s voice, this time, came through Hugh’s earpiece. “I wish to accompany her.”

    “Alright. That’s fine, both of you. Garvan will follow you, Sheri.”

    Sheridan put her hands on her hips and frowned. “I don’t need a minder anymore, uncle. I’m just fine out there on my own. I want to be able to explore without you making him tag along like some sort of babysitter!”

    With a shrug, Hugh replied, “He asked, don’t look at me.” He removed his earpiece and tossed it to Sheridan.

    After catching it, the girl looked back and forth between Hugh and Garvan, before sighing. “In that case, how can I complain? C’mon, I wasn’t feeling like riding my bike anyway.” She grabbed two magnetized handlebars off a rack near the door and left the makeshift lab.

    Hugh looked to Garvan with a smile. “I’d still appreciate it if you could convince her to be back for supper.”

    Garvan grunted once in an affirmative, and floated out into the main hallway after his charge.

    “Alright Novo, we’ll get you back to normal.” Hugh retrieved a pokeball from his desk, this one intact, and recalled Novo into it. Plugging it back into his computer, he punched in several commands, calling up huge blocks of code.

    [INDEX → GENETIC VIEW → HOMEOBOX]

    As an afterthought, he pawed at a recorder on his cluttered desk. “Ah, iteration, iteration… fifty-eight, yes. As expected, the subject has gained full awareness before anything else. That piece of paper hanging on my wall proves valuable once again. Unfortunately, an error somewhere on the physical side has occurred and subject proved incapable of movement and only partially capable of sensation. I am once again rolling back the so-called upgrades to perform a more comprehensive debriefing, once my assistant returns. We’re now entering realms far removed from my area of expertise. If I wouldn’t be hanged for this, I’d get outside help. As it is, I will be as cautious as possible, and pray to whatever gods the people here worship that I don’t lose her for good. For specifics, consult documents 58TD and 58CN.”

    He halted when a string of strange characters in Novo’s code caught his attention, before selecting them and copying them into a document open on another monitor. “Note to self, should I review this in the future; the blackout curtains are providing a slight workflow improvement, but Garvan is complaining about my irregular sleep patterns. He is right, as always, and thankfully not here to hear that admission. Recommend removal if efficiency gains continue to be merely marginal.”

    More lines of strange code filled his screen, and Hugh started anew his work of manually editing his friend. In some oft-forgotten corner of his mind was a niggling feeling that he was forgetting to do something. Something about cups.

    His phone’s ringtone startled him out of his focus. He slapped a hand down on where it vibrated against his desk, disturbing a small pile of handwritten notes. After sweeping them aside, he picked it up. [SIERRA STILES], the device reported, while trying to shake itself out of his grip. He swiped his thumb across its screen to accept the call. “What do you need, Ms. Stiles?”

 

* * *

 

                   

    Finally, the gigantic contraption stopped moving. Tucked in the rear of the odd cage that made its body, Brand was looking forward to finally being released. He tried, as he had many times before, to peer around the headrest in front of him for a good look at Echo’s expression. The Flygon seemed bored of the intense pace they’ve kept for three hours; perhaps being capable of flight made such speeds commonplace. Brand was still unsettled, despite how smooth that ride had been.

    A sudden silence stole his thoughts away, and he realized he had managed to tune out the thrumming of the vehicle’s operation, which only then made itself known by its absence once its subtle vibration beneath him ceased. Echo opened his door and stepped out, manipulating some mechanism to fold the back of his seat to allow Brand out even as, with his other hand, he picked up the ship’s bell that was their prize. Sierra folded her seat forward as well, to allow Ruka to exit, and fished around in her pocket for her phone. _Much different than the ones you’d known, Elty, just like their transportation,_ Brand thought. _If you had returned with me, would you be as lost as I am?_

    After he stepped out of the contraption, he turned back to fetch Ruka’s bag on its rear seat, and saw her trembling as she gingerly set foot on earth once again. Two steps towards the vehicle’s rear let him jump over its flatter back half with ease, landing not far behind her. She didn’t look towards him, even as he put his arm around her, too distracted by the construction they just left and the one they were, presumably, about to enter. Echo was returning from a niche in that structure – set inside a wall so precisely engineered that Brand almost got lost in its intricate stonework – to retrieve his and Sierra’s equipment from the bed of her vehicle, having deposited the bell on a step before a door Sierra was attempting to unlock and open with one hand, holding her phone to an ear with her other.

    “Yeah, we’re already back,” she was saying as Brand and Ruka walked up behind her. “When do you want it delivered?” She hefted one of the bags Echo delivered when she finally unlocked her door, and shouldered her way inside. Brand and Ruka followed only tentatively, in a state of constant distraction. A shrill beep from behind them almost sent Ruka back out the door, but Echo blocked that avenue of escape as he came around with another bag. He shot Ruka a slight knowing grin before stabbing at a panel on a wall, then ambling off down a side corridor with his load. Brand dragged her back close under his arm, before guiding her to what he was pretty sure was a couch. As soon as she sat, she sunk to an alarming depth in its cushions.

    “All of them?” Sierra just about shouted into her phone. “Really? That’s absurd.” With a bit of wind-up, Sierra tossed her bag halfway across the room, to land on the other end of the couch. It teetered forward, but Brand righted it before sitting down next to Ruka, who was free to twitch nervously to her frayed nerves’ desire, now that she didn’t have to stand. Echo strode back into view, grinned when he saw the pair, then picked up a thin device and pointed it at a large black panel taking up much of the wall their couch faced.

    It flicked to life in a burst of light, and suddenly became a sort of glowing window, looking out onto a scene of two humans having a conversation in front of a very old, crumbled building. Echo placed his remote control back down and walked over to pick up Sierra’s bag before departing again. “If you say so. Drop me a line when y’all’re ready,” Sierra was saying, over the not-quite-a-window’s noise. “In the meantime, I have a problem I’d like to get your opinion on real quick.”

    ‘They’re- They’re dead.’ Ruka murmured, before tearing her gaze away from the panel and looking at Brand with wide eyes. ‘They must be, I can’t feel anything from them. How do you still breathe and think and feel with no aura?’ She spoke much louder now, enough to drown out Sierra’s continuing conversation.

    ‘I doubt they’re here,’ Brand replied, quieter. ‘Humans have ways of bringing the very distant close. Sierra’s talking to someone far away right now, through something that looks like a much smaller version of that.’ He indicated the display before them. ‘Elty called it a… An, uh, well I can’t really say it. Human words are hard to pronounce.’

    Ruka drew her legs to her chest. ‘I should have been careful what I wished for. This is too much, all of it. I knew they could make fascinating things; we’ve seen ruins, twisted remains of a device here and there. But that’s very different from seeing it work, experiencing it all first-hand. I could never have dreamed of anything like this.’ She looked back to him, but not before stealing another glance at the big screen. ‘You never even wanted this. Why did you decide to come back? Just for her?’

    ‘A friend’s dying wish. She couldn’t come back, so she wanted me to do it in her place.’

    ‘Another of your stupid promises.’

    ‘Well, I couldn’t say no to something like that.’ He looked around the room. ‘She told me all about human civilization. It’s the only reason I’m not even worse than you right now.’ He smiled at her then, and nudged her with an elbow. She flailed in mock protest, but calmed down a bit afterward.

    Brand’s turn to start, then, as Sierra collapsed onto the couch on his other side, just far enough to avoid crushing Ruka’s satchel. “Well, that was mostly pointless. Still, I think I found a solution to your problem.” She smiled at him, then. “You know, I never really figured out what I was going to do with you once I’d brought you home.”

    He looked back to Ruka before fishing his notebook out of her satchel. Retrieving it revealed some of the bag’s other contents, prompting Sierra to recoil, then dive her hand in. “Oh hell, you took it?” She fished out the old weapon from the ruins, opened it again, and inverted it. Six small pieces fell out, which she quickly pocketed before putting the gun on a side table. “I’ll hold on to this.”

    Brand was going to protest - and Ruka did, though not very forcefully, not that Sierra could understand her anyway - but something in the satchel drew his own attention. The same small orb he’d needed to touch to activate the gate in his world rested there, pulsing with a faint glow.

    That might cause some problems where prophecy was concerned.

Sighing and shaking his head, he flipped to a blank page, angled it towards Sierra, and began at the top, _‘Which problem?’_

“You know, avoiding pokéballs, what we went over in the car.” Sierra looked between him and Ruka. “Why, are there new ones?”

    Waving her off, Brand moved to a new line. _‘We are getting used to this place is all. What is this solution?’_

“Don’t know! Not my field of expertise. I was just talking with someone who is an expert, though. Well, maybe not that field, but some other similar field, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

    _‘What did he say?’_

    “Well, he said he might know someone who knows a guy.”

 

* * *

 

    As he turned off the main road, Michael took another shot at his ice cream cone. This time the roof of his mouth didn’t recoil at the temperature, and no headache set upon him. Next to him floated Alata, happily sucking down a milkshake. The Latias drifted closer to him to avoid a telephone pole, tilting her wings up to fit between them. Once past, she drifted away again and relaxed her wings, again taking up most of the sidewalk’s width. Michael fell in behind her to let some other pedestrians pass.

 _“Look, only one of them gawked. We’re still in the tourist trap part of town, too,”_ he subvocalized.

    Alata looked back over her shoulder and wing at the three people they’d passed, then returned to her treat, craning her long neck down to the cup she held in her stubby arms, in front of the thick gold disk on her collar. Michael laughed inwardly at that pose’s complete lack of grace, then belatedly fuzzed up his thoughts to try and obscure his mirth. Alata cocked her head to look at him sidelong, then abandoned her efforts.

_“Oh come on, I didn’t mean anything by it.”_

_“I should look dignified in front of visitors,”_ her well-practiced, pleasant voice echoed in his head. _“You said this would be the only time most of them ever saw one of my kind. All part of-”_ Michael knew that no sensation accompanied such minor mental actions as rifling through his vocabulary, but he could almost trick himself into feeling it when he knew she did- _“image management. First impressions are even more important when they’re last impressions too, aren’t they?”_

_“No, that might be when they’re least important. You’re not exactly being interviewed.”_

_“At least they didn’t take pictures.”_

_“Every celebrity has their paparazzi.”_

    Alata sent him the sensation of a shrug, and he caught himself rolling his shoulders in response. _“Still gotta work on those,”_ he followed up.

    Calling her a celebrity wasn’t really accurate, though none could deny that a minuscule – but not negligible – bump in tourism to Manisees Island occurred after word got out a very rare pokémon did indeed inhabit the island, and could even be seen tooling around the center of town once somewhat regularly. Certain establishments occasionally let her partake free of charge, like her part of their current frozen dessert. But none were as grateful as the Tide Street Café, one corner of which had become Michael’s unofficial office, where he had coffee every weekday morning and heard feedback on the PC storage system he managed for the island. Grateful enough, even, to suspend their usual no-pokémon-allowed policy for Alata and her alone.

    This was, then, their second time stepping through its door today, the entrance shadowed from the setting sun, instead of morning’s bright illumination. “Hello, Aldo,” he said to the large man behind the counter, built more like a fisherman than a baker. “Nola wanted to talk to me.”

    The big man waved them towards a distant corner, where a staircase led upstairs. Michael tossed the remains of his cone in a nearby wastebasket – surprised he had finished so quickly – as he crossed the café to reach them. Alata floated over a cord fastened across it as she pulled her wings up to fit in the narrow space leaving Michael behind to unlatch, and relatch, the barrier. A short hallway led to several doors from the top, and Alata drifted aside so Michael could enter one of the five doors it serviced. The elderly Nola sat at a desk in her library, flipping through a preposterously massive stack of papers one by one. She only looked up when Alata closed the door behind her. “Nice of you to join me on such short notice.”

    Looking around while he settled into one of the room’s plush chairs, Michael replied, “What’s so important you wanted to see us in person?”

    The short woman grinned from behind her stacks of paperwork. “Oh, some people are just too smart for the likes of us, that’s all. A family friend – once a research partner of my son-in-law’s – figured there’s some untold side of how you and she,” Nola indicated Alata, “get around without a pokéball yet keep trainers from crawling all over you. He called me up about a woman who is working for him, says she came across some pokémon and it’s important she find a way to keep them without stuffing them in balls, even if just as a temporary measure.”

    Michael rested his face in his palms. “You had to put us in that damn book, didn’t you.”

    “The recording of history cannot be denied!” Nola crowed.

    “Sometimes it makes a hassle for us in the present.”

    “Sometimes, historical reference is immediately useful.”

 _“I don’t know why they can’t have one of these, if it’s important,”_ Alata said in Michael’s mind, while tapping her collar.

    “I didn’t exactly make them to mass-produce,” Michael replied to her, looking over to where she had settled into another chair. Her milkshake rested on an arm of her chair, and she had abandoned all pretenses she adopted on the street.

_“A couple more can’t be so bad.”_

    Nola grinned from behind her desk. “She wants to help, doesn’t she?”

    After a sigh punctuated by several seconds of silence, Michael said, “What did you tell him, anyway?”

    “Me? Nothing. I assumed you could make the decision yourself.”

    “We can hear them out, at least,” Michael said, as Alata sent him an almost identical sentence. The two looked at each other briefly, and the Latias snorted in amusement.

    “Good!” Nola shuffled underneath several of the loose papers before her and found a small card. Alata floated over when the woman held it out, retrieving it to give to Michael as he stood. “This was the number he told me to contact, if I had any information.”

    Michael took it and turned for the door, but stopped himself. Looking back at Nola, he said “Why are you helping him? I thought you weren’t on good terms with-”

    “Oh, that’s no reason to burn all your bridges. So what if he once worked with that jerk? He doesn’t anymore. Besides, his sister’s involved in some obscure historical committee out in Johto, when she’s not flying across the world with her husband on business trips. Us small-time historians look out for each other, even indirectly.”

    “Makes sense, I guess. I’ll give them a ring tonight.”

    “Oh, and while you’re here, ask Aldo about the leftovers. Maybe they'll make treats for the pokémon you’re caring for.”

    Michael nodded and left Nola’s library-office, Alata drifting behind him. She deposited her now-empty cup in a nearby wastebasket when they stepped out into the ground floor once again. Aldo still sat behind the counter, and looked up from whatever he had been fiddling with when they came into view.

    “Nola said something about leftovers,” Michael said, walking up to the counter. “Thought they might make some decent snacks for stored pokémon during their air-time.”

    Aldo fetched a large bag and started emptying the paltry remains of the pastry display. “S’pose so. Y’get a new dinghy?”

    “They came out with a hydrojet model, figured I’d upgrade. It’s not getting in your way, is it?”

    “Nah, yer gone before I get back anyway, most’a th’ time. Here y’go.” He handed Michael the half-filled bag, and gave Alata a little wave. “Nice seein’ ya myself, once in a while.”

    The streetlamps outside snapped on shortly after they left, illuminating a road most of the tourists seemed reluctant to travel on as the hour grew late. The main drag would still be packed, though, so Michael turned away from it and continued in the direction they’d initially arrived from, away from the shore.

_“Going to have another snack? You finished your dessert fast enough.”_

    “Nah, that was enough for me,” he replied aloud.

_“We’re taking the long way back?”_

    “Why not? Figured you’d had enough of the public for one day.”

    Alata didn’t reply, but he could feel her thankfulness through their bond.

 

* * *

 

    Ruka sat up in bed. Her mind kept racing through everything she’d learned today. Humans had many more wonders than she could have imagined. Not all of it was their doing, she knew; pokémon played a big role in their society. Brand, translating for Echo, had relayed that the Flygon said in this world humans were thinkers and pokémon were doers. An over-generalization for sure, but one that made its point well enough; humans lead, and pokemon faithfully followed. The question was why?

    She could see the logic in it, but no pokémon would follow a leader who couldn’t hold their own, by their own talents or leadership of others. Ruka looked forward to seeing humankind’s mettle. The sheer scale involved with that task may prove too much, considering the constant barrage of new objects and experiences to take in, but it was a single goal she could focus on, something related to the familiar. She could ease herself into the rest, from there.

    For now, though, she couldn’t even manage the simple ordeal of falling asleep.

    Of everything she’d learned, she chewed on one topic that had nothing to do with humans: Brand knew she’d come back with him. That worried her; she was never a fan of predestination, of being locked into only one possible future. Furthermore, she wasn’t the only arrival that Espeon foretold. Three more would appear, and something about an ‘undertaker’, and some cape and knife thing. Together, they apparently meant subterfuge and death, and those were two things Ruka would rather nobody undertake.

    Slipping out of the mass of bedding she’d accumulated, Ruka opened her and Brand’s bedroom door just enough to slip out, and padded across the carpet in silence. In the large room they’d first entered after they arrived, Sierra was sitting at some sort of desk with one of her glowing not-windows, talking to another human and a Latias. Echo sat on a couch, eyes closed – until one opened at her approach to see her enter. His aura read mischief, and she didn’t like that.

    As before, the beings in the screen had no Aura. This absence of a sense made her shiver, a feeling similar to eating food that smelled nice but couldn’t be tasted. Sierra’s, at least, read casual business. Her language’s weird tonal growling reminded her of sounds Chatots would occasionally make, showing off their vocal range by combining the typical sounds of several species at once. As fascinating as the language was, trying to follow it made Ruka’s head hurt.

    Sky blue paint adorned the walls of this room, and the warm lighting reminded her of sunrise or sunset. What was the point, she wondered, of decorating the inside of your home like the outside world it sheltered you from? As if the incredibly large windows weren’t enough of a view. With how dark it was getting outside, reflections of the interior obscured half the surrounding environment anyway.

    She couldn’t deny this sophisticated technology still interested her. Brand swore by humanity’s miraculous achievements, even though most of those he only knew secondhand, and he was just as intimidated as her by the vehicle that had whisked them from the ancient temple to Sierra’s home. She wanted to see how humans could perform in combat. She wanted to see what made pokémon here consider them worthy leaders. Besides, she was tired of the leadership role thrust upon her, and being back by Brand’s side was her greatest desire for years now.

    She could not, however, make much of her initial impressions. Too much, too fast. Humans, Ruka decided, don’t make much sense. Perhaps seeking them out was a mistake after all. She should have been more careful of what she wished for.


End file.
